Rajoy battles to save position amid corruption scandal

SPANISH Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is battling to save his political career after facing increasing pressure to resign over the PP corruption scandal.

Nearly a million people have signed an online petition calling for him to step down, amid widespread protests.

Opinion polls show that 77% believe he is now no longer fit to lead the country, while 54% believe there should be a general election.

Opposition leader Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba has called for his head, demanding that Rajoy be grilled in Congress about the allegations.

The prime minister stands accused of accepting illegal cash payments made to top-ranking party officials over a 12-year period.

Rajoy however fiercely denies the claims, describing them as ‘totally false’ and has said he will publish his tax returns online.

Among the other politicians accused of taking ‘bungs’ are current General Secretary Maria Delores Cospedal, Senate President Pio Garcia Escudero and even former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

The money was allegedly taken from a €22 million slush fund hidden in a Swiss bank account controlled by former party treasurer Luis Barcenas.

Barcenas kept secret ledgers of money received between 1990 and 2008 from donors, including firms, and it is these that show the alleged payments to Rajoy.

The notebooks, published by Spanish newspaper El Pais at the weekend, show the prime minister was allegedly paid €25,200 each year from 1999 to 2008.

Until 2007, Spanish political parties were allowed to receive anonymous donations – the ledgers were kept from 1990 to 2009.

The PP has threatened to sue those making the allegations, which it describes as a smear campaign.

But despite the denials, even Rajoy himself appeared to indicate there was some truth in the allegations, in a cryptic answer to a journalist’s question at a press conference in Berlin.

“Everything that refers to me, and that appears there, and to some of my fellow party members that appear there, is not right, except for something that the media has published,” he said.

Former PP deputy Jorge Trias Sagnier and five other former senior officials have already confirmed that party leaders received bungs.

Moreover, Spain’s chief state prosecutor has confirmed there could be enough evidence to investigate, and the PP has been forced to conduct an internal audit.

Barcenas – who controlled the slush fund – has already been forced to step down from his role as party treasurer after being implicated in the Gurtel corruption scandal, in Valencia.

The case involves the alleged awarding of construction contracts by the regional government, in exchange for cash donations.

Between 2002 and 2004, secret cash payments were made to Barcenas in exchange for public contracts for construction firm Constructora Hispanica.

Barcenas got €600,000 in cash during that time, but only put €114,000 through the PP books as political donations.

The rest is alleged to have been put into a central pot, which was then distributed by Barcenas and fellow treasurer Alvaro Lapuerta as backhanders to senior PP officials.

A total of €120 million, paid into the fund by a group of businessmen led by Francisco Correa, is believed to have gone undeclared.

The payment scandal comes against a backdrop of severe austerity, spending cuts and an unemployment rate of 26%. It also comes as Spain tries increasingly hard to raise taxes and penalise middle class earners.

On Monday, the threat of political upheaval forced Spanish bond yields to surge and stock markets to dive.

8 COMMENTS

The 77% are correct, this man is useless. When giving his most recent speech, the broadcast was sent by video to journalists, who were situated just a few metres away!

Rather than take questions face-to-face with people, this man hides himself away all of the time. Publishing his tax returns is not an answer; these are secret ledgers. Quite amazing that such a useless leader as Zapatero can be replaced with an equally bad numskull. At least Zapatero was not caught with brown envelopes.

He may protest his innocence but my gut feeling is that the allegations are true. I remember that not long after coming into power he sacked journalists from state TV because they asked too many awkward questions, that sort of behaviour is more akin to an African despot rather than the leader of a modern western democracy, after all that is what Spain is supposed to be.

To contact the newsdesk out of regular office hours please call +34 665 798 618
We are available over the Christmas and Easter holidays

Voted Spain‘s number one expat newspaper and ‘second in the world’, by 27,000 people polled by UK marketing group Tesca. Also dubbed “The best English newspaper in Spain,” according to the UK’s Rough Guide. The Olive Press is the English language newspaper for Spain. Local news, in particular, from the Costa del Sol, Andalucia, Alicante, Murcia and Mallorca, plus national news from around Spain. A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press launched in 2006 and represents the huge and growing expatriate community in Spain – with over 100,000 printed copies monthly, 10,000 visitors a day online we have an estimated readership of more than 500,000 people a month.